What is there

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What there is (original title: On what there is ) is one of the most widely received scientific publications by the American philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine and thus one of the most important in analytical philosophy . The text first appeared in 1948 in the Review of Metaphysics and in 1953 in the anthology Von einer logischen Standpunkt (From A Logical Point of View) .

The special significance of this essay is, among other things, that Quine re-poses traditional philosophical problems that were still dismissed as pseudo- problems in the early phase of analytical philosophy , which was hostile to metaphysics . In particular, this includes the medieval universal dispute , which Quine projects onto a current discussion in the philosophy of mathematics . Quine brings the basic question of ontology to the shortest possible formulation: “What is there?” And also gives the most concise answer: “Everything”. In addition, Quine devotes himself to the problem of non-existence and makes a contribution to the philosophical debate on proper names . Quine's approaches to solutions are committed to the philosophy of ideal language : the instruments of formal logic are used for language criticism. The outstanding importance of the essay is also a consequence from the fact that in the influential notion of ontological commitment (ontological commitment) introduced and is characterized in this context, the slogan "means to be the value of a bound variable to be."

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The problem of nonexistence

Quine first addresses the problem of non-existence. For example, what does it mean that Pegasus does not exist ? It seems that Pegasus must already exist, because what else is being denied existence here? Quine calls this problem “ Plato's beard”.

The problem becomes particularly relevant in an ontological dispute about the recognition or non-recognition of certain entities (see also reductionism ). Because of Plato's beard, the negative side, which does not recognize the entities, already seems to be at a disadvantage when it comes to formulating the difference: If it says that there are certain things that the other side recognizes and it does not, then it already has itself himself contradicted.

Quine examines different ways in which non-existent entities like Pegasus can have some kind of "reduced" existence (sometimes called subsistence ) so that in the next step they can be denied full existence. One possibility is for Pegasus to represent an idea in the mind . With ordinary, existing things such as the Parthenon , however, there is a big difference between the thing itself and its idea (for example, things can be touched, ideas cannot), so it is not clear why, with non-existent things, the idea as a substitute for the thing could serve yourself.

Another kind of reduced existence is that of a "non-updated possibility ". This theory asserts that objects that do not exist but that might exist exist in a limited sense as possible objects. Quine's objection to this new type of object invokes, on the one hand, Occam's razor : its assumption unnecessarily multiplies the realm of existing things. In addition, he explains that they do not achieve their goal: Although these possible objects provide an analysis for logical statements such as “Pegasus does not exist”, they fail, however, for statements such as “the round square dome of Berkeley does not exist”, because the same is not once a possible, but an impossible object. Quine rejects the idea of viewing adversarial expressions such as “the round square dome” as meaningless in terms of the philosophy of language : Then the technique of proving indirect proof ( reductio ad absurdum ) would no longer be permissible, because with this proof method contradicting assumptions must be made.

After showing the unacceptability of these theories of reduced existence, Quine presents his own solution to the problem of negative existence statements. He relies on Bertrand Russell's theory of labeling : According to this, the statement: “The round square dome of Berkeley does not exist” can be analyzed as: “There is either no or more than one thing (the Berkeley dome) that is round and square is ". The advantage of this analysis is that the expression “the round square dome”, which seems to refer to an individual (which raises the question of which individual it should be), has disappeared from the sentence. Russell's theory is only applicable to labels, ie expressions of the form “der / die / das A”, not to proper names like “Pegasus”. Quine's suggestion is to convert proper names into labels, if necessary by introducing ad hoc predicates such as "pegasized". So Pegasus would be “the thing that pegasizes”.

Ontological obligations

A thorough elimination of proper names (and a treatment of the resulting identifications in the sense of Russell) has the advantage that the existence of objects no longer implicitly presupposed through the use of names ( presupposition ), but has to be explicitly asserted. If the resulting sentences are translated into a predicate logic notation , these existence assertions are expressed by means of quantifiers and the variables bound by them .

Given a set of assertions, one can speak of the totality of individuals whose existence must be assumed if the asserted statements are true. These individuals are the ontological commitments called by Quine (ontological commitments), we make with the allegations. Quine's statement is to be understood in such a way that our ontological obligations derive from our use of variables bound by quantifiers. An ontological obligation to a particular entity exists when this entity must be counted among the values ​​that one of the variables can assume - assuming that the assertions in question are true.

Quine's approach can be considered typical of the philosophy of ideal language: Statements in everyday language are translated into a formal language, the so-called canonical notation, in order to make their logical content transparent. If it is possible to resolve proper names, they represent a misleading feature of everyday language.

The universals problem

In his essay, Quine also deals with an application of his general statements about ontology, namely with the problem of universals, i.e. the question of whether there are abstract objects. A proponent of abstract entities could argue that red houses and sunsets have something in common, and that commonality is an abstract object, the color red. For Quine, however, the talk of commonality is just a misleading phrase, the fact that both houses and Sunsets are red, he considers irreducible and claims that "occult" objects like the color red do not provide a better explanation for this fact.

Quine also considers another candidate for abstract objects to be dispensable: meanings . There are only two contexts in which meaning is meaningful: when asked whether an expression has meaning and when asked whether two expressions have the same meaning. Instead of the first question, one could however also ask whether an expression important (significant) was, instead of the second, if two terms interchangeably be (dedicated to the second problem, among other Quine's essay Two Dogmas of Empiricism ). In no case is it necessary to assume independent things called meanings.

In the philosophy of mathematics, according to Quine, the old universal controversy over the existence of abstract objects has flared up again; in fact, even the three classical positions can be found today:

The treatment of an ontological dissent

At the end of his essay, Quine makes some general statements about how an ontological dissent, i.e. a dispute about the recognition or non-recognition of certain entities, should be conducted. Quine advocates “semantic ascent” : Instead of the entities in question, the statements in which the entities are discussed should be addressed. On the one hand, the aforementioned problem of “Plato's beard” could be circumvented, and on the other hand, a common basis could be found from which to argue.

When asked which of two competing ontologies to choose, Quine suggests simplicity as a decision criterion, i.e. the Ockham's razor that has already been mentioned. However, simplicity is not a very clear and unambiguous idea. Quine demonstrates this using the two standpoints of phenomenalism and physicalism in relation to the problem of the outside world: When it comes to the reproduction of immediate experiences, sensory data are the simplest and most fundamental objects (“I have the sensation of something round and shiny here and now”). But the assumption of external physical objects simplifies the picture insofar as a large number of distributed objects can thus be combined into a single object (different sensations of something round and shiny are combined into a coin, for example). In this context, Quine shows himself to be a pragmatist : which of the two standpoints we take ultimately depends on our interests and purposes.

Web links

literature

  • Willard Van Orman Quine: From a Logical Point of View, Harvard University Press, 1953
  • Willard Van Orman Quine: Was there is, German translation in Wolfgang Stegmüller (Ed.): Das Universalienproblem, WBG, Darmstadt 1978, pp. 102–123

Footnotes

  1. ^ “A curious thing about the ontological problem is its simplicity. It can be put in three Anglo-Saxon monosyllables: 'What is there?'. It can be answered, moreover in a word - 'Everything'. " (P. 1, the page numbers refer here as everywhere to the American original edition, see bibliography)
  2. ↑ The wording “To be assumed as an entity is […] to be reckoned as the value of a variable” can be found in the text (p. 13). This was later shortened to “To be is to be the value of a bound variable”.
  3. ↑ “Nonbeing must be in some sense, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato's beard […]. ” (P. 2)
  4. ↑ p. 1
  5. ↑ p. 2
  6. ↑ p. 3
  7. ↑ p. 5 ff.
  8. ^ "[T] he only way we can involve ourselves in ontological commitments [is] by our use of bound variables". P. 12
  9. ↑ "[We] are convicted of a particular ontological presupposition if, and only if, the alleged presuppositum has to be reckoned among the entities over which our variables range in order to render one of our affirmations true." P. 13
  10. ↑ “That the houses and roses and sunsets are all of them red may be taken as ultimate and irreducible, and it may be held that [the proponent of abstract entities] is no better off, in point of real explanatory power, for all the occult entities which he posits under such names as 'redness' ”. P. 10
  11. ↑ p. 11
  12. ↑ p. 14f
  13. ↑ p. 16
  14. ↑ "But simplicity [...] is not a clear and unambiguous idea [...]."
  15. ↑ p. 19